>> Some of the biggest companies in the world have adopted meditation plans, including Ford, Adobe and Google.

Beyond all the studies, though, Breneman has seen the benefits of meditation in her own life.

Though she mostly focuses on meditation training now, she’s also an attorney.

She has specialized in cases involving people who suffered severe burns. About 80 percent of her clients were children who had burn injuries or parents who had lost their children—people who were dealing with severe, long-term pain.

Through her cases, she often worked with psychologists who talked about studies showing that mindfulness and meditation could get results where medication and traditional therapy wouldn’t.

At the time, Breneman was traveling a lot, and because of job-related stress, her health wasn’t great. She wondered if meditation might help her get back on an even keel—and it did.

“The person who really needed meditation the most was me,” Breneman said.

That was nine years ago. For the past five years, Breneman has been a teacher herself.